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4

11votes

Initial Kickstarter Responses

Posted by
Chris Avellone
,
15 February 2012
·
16559 views

Iíve gone through all the blog responses, comments, and Twitter responses - I wanted to say thanks to you all for the idea suggestions and the support.

And just as importantly, feel free to keep them coming. I routinely check Twitter (@ChrisAvellone), Facebook, my inbox, and a number of gaming sites with similar questions (Penny Arcade, Rock/Paper/Shotgun, NMA, RPGCodex, GameBanshee, RPG Watch, Giant Bomb) in addition to this blog so while it helps if you put your comments here or in the blog below, chances are if you frequent those other sites, Iíll have a way of getting that feedback.

If you see a thread that I may have missed, feel free to suggest it (thatís where I found many of the links above).

Iíve tabulated all the current responses as of last night, and it went off to the Obsidian owners for evaluation. I canít promise anything will come from it, but considering the outpouring of feedback here, I appreciate everyone that took the time to respond (and the detail as well).

An additional thanks to those who had enough faith in us to be supportive no matter what the project was... that was encouraging to read.

To answer some common questions:

- Pursuing Kickstarter was a question of personal interest on my part. It doesnít guarantee that Obsidian would do a Kickstarter project. All I know Iíd love to do one, and while I have games Iíd love to do, I was more curious as to what youíd want to see.

- Some people asked why we would seek funding at all. In short, our cash largely stems from publisher financing. If a publisher doesnít believe a title is worth the investment (adventure games, old school RPGs), they will not support the endeavor.

- What excited me about Double Fine is that it skirted asking the publishers and pitching to publishers in the first place and changed the pitch focus to the folks who want to play the game. They had a means of going directly to the public and asking if theyíd support a project, which they did. And as a developer, getting such a reaction from fans for a seemingly "deadĒ genre is welcome.

- If interested in the results, the most responses concerned in order of preference (note that thereís likely bias here considering the author of the Twitter and the blog post below):

Planescape 2/Planescape Spiritual Successor.

An Isometric turn-based/pause RPGs in general.

The ďotherĒ category Ė this fell into game suggestions and mechanics and genres that were only suggested by 1 or 2 folks. I read all of these.

Make whatever you want, weíll support you.

Again, thanks for the feedback, I appreciate it. And even if my Excel-burned-eyes are dry from tabulating responses, itís good that there was such a strong amount of feedback in the first place.

I think one of the best parts of all of this, if you all do decide to take the plunge, is that Obsidian will finally get to make an RPG and own the IP. I've never been in the gaming industry but even I realize how special that is. So, with that said, I just ask you make something worth revisiting.

While I'd like to see a Planescape sequel as much as anyone, I'm thinking even if the crowd-sourcing project is successful in securing funding, the other half of the battle is getting the rights to someone elses IP (namely Wizards of the Coast).

However it is my understanding that Timothy Cain is currently employed by Obsidian, so I'd be quite keen on seeing a sequel to Arcanum.